Mountain Layers Brewing celebrates five years

It is early Thursday afternoon, and nevertheless the Memorial Working day Weekend summer time kickoff is however a few months away, the two-tale taproom of Mountain Levels Brewing in downtown Bryson City is buzzing with locals and site visitors alike. 

“We sense very blessed to be here and are living in this element of the country,” explained Mark Pettit. “What we like about this brewery is seeing our regulars just about every working day, and also the men and women from all over who check out Bryson Town as soon as or 2 times a yr, where by they constantly make it a precedence to halt in.”

Co-owner of Mountain Levels along with his spouse, Kim, the Pettits have turn into a staple of the craft beer and tourism society in the smaller mountain city because the Minnesota pair permanently relocated to Western North Carolina and opened the institution 5 decades back. 

“We could’ve happened to locate ourselves residing in any community when we ended up looking to shift right after my retirement from general public support. But, we ended up blessed to have identified this area,” Mark said. “It’s undoubtedly a neighborhood that looks out for 1 an additional, in which you definitely get to know your neighbor, the regional officers, mayor and county commissioners, and everybody who comes listed here on getaway.”

Situated on Everett Road up coming to the Tuckasegee River in the heart of Bryson City, the 7-barrel method brewery itself is cradled by two taprooms and a large rooftop patio. On any specified sunny day, the residence is a beehive of welcoming faces and hearty banter, all swirling about pint immediately after pint of craft beer staying slid across the bar counter.

But, ambiance is a person issue, remaining in a position to craft fantastic artisan ales is a different, with Mountain Levels taking household two golds (Honey Just 2 A lot more, Tale of the Dunkel), a silver (Goodday Day-to-day Gentle Lager) and a bronze (Hazel Creek Blonde Ale) at the Carolinas Championship of Beer in April.

“Both of our brewers are extremely humble men and women, which is a little something I love about our brewery team — using delight in your craft and often aiming to get far better with each and every batch of beer,” Mark stated. 

The original seed for Mountain Levels was planted when the Pettits have been considering what to do and exactly where to go as soon as Mark was prepared to retire. They’d currently been roaming all over the Good Smoky Mountains for about 15 many years at that stage and bought a cabin not very long following their initial visit. But, what following?

Cynthia Womble photo

“Back then, Southwestern Neighborhood College or university in Sylva had a craft beer plan, exactly where you could find out how to brew beer, offer beer, and function in the field,” Mark mentioned. “So, I took a possibility and jumped on the study course. I liked what I was undertaking and started off interning with breweries all over the location.” 

By early 2017, Mountain Levels was placing the finishing touches on its brewery, opening on March 31. From there, it’s been a continuous and ongoing system of updating machines, tweaking recipes and increasing upon the ultimate vision of the firm. 

And, like any good brewery worthy of its bodyweight in salt (or in this situation, hops), the Pettits make good strides in getting a place of beneficial adjust and advancement in a neighborhood exactly where they’ve place down deep roots. A person of these initiatives at Mountain Layers is its popular “Community Supplying Method.”

For each and every “Beer of the Month” chosen, Mountain Levels offers the purchaser a “coin” value 50 cents to one particular of 6 area nonprofits. There is 6 Plexiglas containers in the brewery wherever prospects fall the cash in for the nonprofit of their preference, to which the brewery then counts up the coins at the end of the month and would make a separate donation to each of the organizations.

“We’re grateful and happy the neighborhood has embraced the brewery, where we now have 11 employees, and not only us, but our consumers also treatment about our staff and their effectively-remaining,” Mark mentioned. “It can be really hard for a tiny company to attempt to give as considerably as you can. But, we imagine that if you acquire treatment of the group, then the local community will choose treatment of you.”

With its fifth anniversary now in the rearview mirror, the Pettits cannot consider it’s now been fifty percent a 10 years. And however, the motion of time is clear and heartfelt, specially when your wander up the stairwell to the patio, which is now lined in law enforcement and fire division patches providing by website visitors from across the country and all around the world — this substantial structural wall that was just blank and vacant on day just one of this operation.

“It’s a extremely unique point to have this area exactly where men and women really feel relaxed, a area to appear and take it easy,” mentioned Mark Pettit. “Folks stroll in and appear to take pleasure in each and every other’s business. You hear the appears of the people, of the conversation, of stay music in the background — it is accurately what we had hoped for.”